


Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart

by parkneroses



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pepperony - Freeform, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 18:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19836148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkneroses/pseuds/parkneroses
Summary: “Tony.”His head shot up.“I don’t know if I want to know the answer, but what are you doing?”





	Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request from my prompts list on Tumblr (@parkneroses). Shoot me an ask if you want to request something!
> 
> BELLARKEHEART108 ASKED: Can you please do pepperoni with 44 :)  
> 44 - “I don’t know if I want to know the answer, but what are you doing?”
> 
> (rated T because i dropped an f-bomb sorry)

Pepper paced up and down the living room. Every couple of minutes, the faint echo of Tony’s howled profanity echoed in the room around her. Nothing out of the ordinary- Tony had always had a sailor’s mouth when he thought Pepper couldn’t hear him. She’d heard tales of his obscenity on missions from the rest of the team, but she always made a quick exit from that conversation. The Avengers didn’t need to know if Tony’s potty mouth was that bad in bed (which, _no_ , it wasn’t). They had Avenging to do. Yes, the screams of anguish were a pretty normal occurrence, but what wasn’t normal was _this_. Pepper decided she would try again.

“Friday, open up. Gotta bring Tony lunch.” She said into the air.

“Sorry Miss Potts. Tony requested not to open the door for you.” Friday replied, sounding somewhat sorry. And, well, Pepper couldn’t really blame the AI for that. Friday was programmed by Tony, and he knew how she could get when she didn’t know what was going on in her own house. The Iron Legion was a prime example of that.

“Well, what is he doing in there?” She knew she wouldn’t get a clear answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“Boss has asked that I do not inform you of anything he is doing in his lab, Miss Potts.”

Well. This was new. It was one thing to not let her in the lab- dangerous chemicals, open flames, not-so-controlled explosions and the like were unbridled in Tony’s lab. But not even letting her know what he was doing? That was suspicious.

She took a step forward towards the door. The glass lit up red.

“Miss Potts, if you attempt to go through this door, I will be forced to activate the Intruder Protocol,” Friday said, sounding even sorrier than she had before.  
A protocol? That made this a lot easier than she’d expected.

“Friday, override Intruder Protocol, and open the door.”

The red light dimmed and the door unlocked with a heavy click. Pepper made her way down the stairs to the lab.

*  
Tony fiddled with the pliers in his hand. They were tiny, yes, but still far too big to bend the skinny tendrils of silver for his newest project. He let the pliers drop to the ground in despair. He was trying so, _so_ hard but it felt like God was against him in this. “Friday, turn down the music,” he asked. The AC/DC album blasting through the lab was lowered accordingly. This was no time for happy music. 

Somehow during his existential crisis, he missed Pepper walking into the lab. She walked up to the bench he was sitting at (though it was more like he was lying on it at this point) and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Tony.”

His head shot up.

“I don’t know if I want to know the answer, but what are you doing?” She asked the amalgamation of flesh and coffee that was thrown across the table in front of her.

“Pepper! Pepper, how lovely it is to see my beautiful, wonderful wife this fine afternoon” He blabbered as he scrambled to cover the pieces of metal and cubic zirconia scattered on the workbench in front of him. Pieces clattered on the ground, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. It’s not like the project was going anywhere in the  
first place.

Pepper uncrossed her arms and let them hang at her sides. He was alone in the lab, not that she’d even thought him capable of cheating. She darted her eyes around the room. There were no fires, no explosions, no children (that one had _not_ been a fun conversation). The lab actually looked pretty clean compared to what she was used to. The only visible messes in the room were the scrap pieces of metal on the table in front of her, and the man behind it who clearly hadn’t slept in _far_ too long.

“Don’t- don’t look. It’s a secret. A surprise actually. Not that it’s working. Wasn’t Friday supposed to keep you out?” Tony stuttered out. Pepper nodded her head.

“Override protocol. Don’t let it crush your ego, but I was kind of scared you’d injured yourself. Or found another prodigy child you were hiding from me.” She said. It was a low blow, but she was still kind of mad at him for blocking her from the lab without even telling her why.

Tony’s shoulders slumped. “Forgot about that,” he muttered under his breath. He lifted himself off the table slowly, careful not to knock anything else to the floor. “I can’t _do_ it Pep” he whined.

Pepper crouched down to look at the newly uncovered pieces on the table. There was a dainty silver chain, fragments of some kind of gem that she hoped desperately weren’t diamond, and what looked to be a tiny frame of some kind. She looked up at her husband, silently questioning him with her eyes.  
Tony looked down at his hands, disappointment visible on his face, and began to twiddle his thumbs.

“Jewellery making. It’s so hard. I can do nuclear physics but I can’t make a damn necklace. I’m a goddamn _genius_ and I can’t make a goddamn motherfucking necklace. I can’t believe this.” He mumbled softly.

Pepper’s powerful gaze softened at that. She leaned closer to him.

“Why were you making a necklace, Tony?” She asked, keeping her voice gentle and calm.

Tony shuffled his chair to the side and pointed at something on the shelf behind him. Realising she couldn’t see what he was pointing at, he gestured to his chest. Pepper looked back behind him and everything clicked in her mind. There behind him, pride of place on his shelf of trophies and awards, sat the arc reactor pepper had framed for him. _Proof that Tony Stark has a heart_. The frame on the table was the metal part, and the gems were the glass.

Tony hadn’t let her into the lab because he was making her a necklace.

An arc reactor necklace.

Like Pepper was all the proof the world needed that Tony Stark did indeed have a heart.

She felt her skin warm lightly as she looked into the eyes of the man that she loved so very much. Sure, living with Tony was a dangerous, noisy, confusing existence, but in that moment Pepper knew she would choose life with that man over anything.


End file.
